New York Times Finally Announces Paywall -- Will Start Charging March 28

The New York Times has finally announced its paid-online access approach.

The paper will begin charging "the most frequent users of its Web site" $15 for a month for access beginning March 28th.

Users in Canada will begin paying today.

Here's how it will work.

Users will get 20 articles a month for free.

Once they click on the 21st article they will get be presented with three digital news packages: $15 for a month of access to the Web site and a mobile phone app; $20 for Web access and an iPad app; and $35 for an all-access plan.

Subscribers to the paper version will automatically get unlimited access across all Times digital platforms except, for now, e-readers like the AmazonKindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Not all visits to NYTimes.com will count toward the 20-article limit. In an effort to ensure that as many as possible of the Web site’s more than 30 million monthly readers are not deterred from visiting, The Times will allow access to people who visit through search engines like Google and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will, however, be a five-article limit a day for people who visit the site from Google.

Said NYT chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr this morning in his annual State of The Times remarks :

“This move is an investment in our future. It will allow us to develop new sources of revenue to support the continuation of our journalistic mission and digital innovation, while maintaining our large and growing audience to support our robust advertising business. And this system is our latest, and best, demonstration of where we believe the future of valued content — be it news, music, games or more — is going.”

The NYT has been discussing and planning (and delaying) a paywall literally for years.

The metered approach would require readers to pay for the site once they have accessed a certain number of articles a month, though supposedly referrals, or links, from other sites would not count towards this toll.

Presumably part of the announcement, if it does come today, will detail how many free articles a reader will get and what fee they will be required to pay once they reach their free quota. As Felix Salmon noted last week there is already a meter graphic on the recommendations page.